Why the ‘70s Were The Best Decade For Horror Movies

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The Exorcist

Quick, let’s play a word association game. When I say “The Sixties” (as in the 1960s), what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Hippies? Woodstock? The Moon landing? Whatever phrase you picked, it’s probably associated with American exceptionalism, sunshine, and/or free love. Now, how about “The Seventies”? Probably not quite as rosy, eh? Watergate. Vietnam. Stagflation. Oil crisis.

Now, this is not to say that the ’60s were all peaches and cream —JFK and MLK were both assassinated, and don’t forget the way in which the Manson murders shook the country to its core— but few people would disagree that the ’70s were a giant hangover compared to the swingin’ Sixties that preceded it. There’s no two ways about it: It was a pretty terrible time to be an American, but then again, the combination of a crumbling belief in our country’s bedrock institutions (government, religion) and widespread economic anxieties made the ’70s a glorious, unprecedented (and, ultimately, unsurpassed) time to make horror movies.

Here’s a small sample of the best of ’70s horror that is available to stream:

SCARIEST

The Exorcist was the second most popular film of 1973, trailing only The Sting at the box office; until the recent release of Stephen King’s It, it was also the highest grossing horror film of all-time. This chilling tale of demonic possession in the tony Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. really pushed the envelope of what kind of psychological trauma a horror movie could inflict upon its audience, in terms of subject matter, special effects, and subject matter (at one point, a 12-year-old girl tells a priest “Your mother sucks cocks in hell”!). Your mileage may ever-so-slightly vary depending on how much time you spent in Sunday school as a child, but there’s no denying that The Exorcist remains one of the scariest movies ever released. The best part about the ’70s as a decade, though, is that this is probably the fifth scariest movie that was released.

What was scarier? How about Alien, for starters? Though most would not classify director Ridley Scott’s 1979 collaboration with screenwriter Dan O’Bannon and Swiss freakazoid H.R. Giger as a “horror movie,” per se, we dare you to find many movies from this decade —or ANY decade, really— that are filled with more iconic scary moments than Alien (with one possible exception, which we’ll discuss below). In his decidedly mixed initial review, Roger Ebert described Alien as “basically just an intergalactic haunted house thriller set inside a spaceship,” and you know what? He’s not wrong. Nearly 40 years later, Ridley Scott is still obsessed with trying to outdo his original, perfect film, as is just about everyone else in Hollywood.

CLASSIC THAT HOLDS UP

Much like Ridley Scott’s original Alien, director John Carpenter’s 1978 opus Halloween set a bar for “slasher movies” that has yet to be surpassed. In Michael Myers, Carpenter created the most iconic, unrelenting killer in movie history —yes, even over Norman Bates— and in casting Jamie Lee Curtis, defined the very concept of the “Final Girl” and “Scream Queen.” Plus, his score for the film is being aped to this very day (hello, Stranger Things!). Most impressively, some 40 years later, there is nothing dated about this film, other than the fashions.

Brian De Palma’s Carrie is another stone classic; arguably, the film has aged even better than its contemporaries. To this day, it remains neck and neck with 1980s’s The Shining the best Stephen King adaptation of all-time, and Sissy Spacek’s raw and vulnerable portrayal of the titular Carrie deservedly earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress (which she lost to Network‘s Faye Dunaway).

WORTH DISCOVERING

The subgenre of horror films known as giallo —which are known for combining elements of traditional horror, psychological thrillers, slasher flicks and the supernatural— first rose to prominence in Italy during the early ’60s, but the apex of the genre is undoubtedly director Dario Argento’s 1977 masterpiece Suspiria. The first 15 minutes of this film, which feature a super saturated (bordering on candy coated) color palate and some of the most intense on-screen violence ever committed to celluloid, makes for the single scariest opening scene in movie history, and the rest of the film —which is about a school for ballet dancers that doubles as a coven for witches—only gets weirder and more terrifying from there.

1973’s Don’t Look Now is another deeply disturbing film, and not just because you get to see a grief-stricken Donald Sutherland licking Julie Christie’s armpits. The movie’s plot revolves around a married couple struggling, personally and professionally, after the accidental drowning of their young daughter. In an attempt to save their marriage, they move to Italy to rekindle their romance, where they encounter a serial killer, blind psychic sisters, and a girl in a red raincoat who very well may be their dead daughter. Based on a Daphne du Maurier short story and directed by Nicolas Roeg, this is a VERY adult film that deals with the single greatest horror any parent can imagine.

BEST AVAILABLE TO STREAM FREE

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We already discussed how Alien doesn’t totally fit the standard definition of a horror movie, so while we’re on the topic, neither does Jaws. That said, you’d be hard pressed to find any one movie (outside of maybe Psycho?) that had a bigger psychological impact on moviegoers the world over than Steven Spielberg’s 1975 adaptation of Peter Benchley’s novel. The original summer blockbuster was also, in many ways, the scariest film of all-time, and perhaps the film that pushes the ’70s, as a decade, ahead of all the rest when it comes to the Best Horror Decade.